New Genetic Studies Opening Up New Paths for Lung Cancer ResearchLeave a comment

Professor Ramaswamy Govindan, of Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, USA, who worked on two of the studies, said that the research gives scientists ‘a penthouse panoramic view’ of lung cancer, whereas before they had been only ‘looking through a keyhole’.

The papers – the first in an expected wave of ‘cataloguing studies’ – reveal a complex series of genetic changes across the genome, and identify lung cancer as a highly diverse or ‘heterogenous’ disease. New mutations discovered include those that allow tumours unrestricted growth, or that enable them to evade the body’s immune responses. Other mutations have been unearthed in genes involved in DNA repair mechanisms.